A/N: Oh Boy. Where the heck did this come from? This little bit of babble came, rather unexpectedly, as I was innocently listening to "The Used", an absolutely smashing band who, bless them, contributed to the plot and title of this ficlet. I strongly suggest downloading anything by them, as they are very good, and make excellent background music while listening to this fic. BLATANT H/D (Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy) slash ahead—read at your own risk, k?
Dedications: To Dana, who was the poor sod who experienced the horror of me being bitten by this rabid plotbunny—and encouraged me to take it home and keep it. Bless you, Danie! Also, a million thanks to my (AMAZING) grammatical beta Moose, and my characterization beta, Kayli—who told me with brutal honesty that this was one of the most improbable things she had ever read. I know that, silly! *g* If it had a hope in hell of happening in the books, do you think I'd waste my time writing it? Ah well, I 3 my betas, anyway! Aussi, pour ma petite fleur. Tu es le soleil, le terre, et le ciel de ma monde! (did I say that right?) 3!
Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't sue.
The Taste of Ink
Potions, Harry concluded, was the most boring subject ever invented, wizard or muggle alike. He carelessly turned a page in his tome, glazed eyes sweeping over the page, registering little more than the pretty pictures and flowery décor to the letters. In his mind, he was silently counting down the hours until this project was over, raising his sugar quill to his lips.
2 days.
48 Hours.
2880 Minutes.
17—Ah!
"Oh, God!" His head violently jerked back from his quill, eyes squinting shut in displeasure. Turning to one side, he spat out the foul substance from his mouth, watching the black smatter of saliva strike the flagstones of the library floor in surprise. He glanced down at the offending object—the supposed "Sugar Quill".
"This…" he spluttered, "…this is a REAL quill?"
His partner did not look up during the entire incident, choosing now to interrupt the other boy's exclamation of amazement.
"Of course it is, you twit," the polished drawl lilted over, from where the immaculate blonde head was still hunched over a textbook, "I replaced your sweets with real quills when we first got here—I want to be assured you're at LEAST doing SOME work, and not just taking a free-ride on my obvious skill in the subject."
The head raised, slightly amused silver clashing with cross, embarrassed viridian. A small twinge, almost like a smile—almost, but not quite—flickered over his pale lips, spreading a brief, malicious twinkle to those chilled eyes of ice.
"Moron."
Harry grit his teeth, wily bangs of messy black partially obscuring his view of the annoying little brat in front of him. 'Mercifully.' His mind added as an afterthought.
"Malfoy," he grated out, "it's 10 o'clock. I don't need this crap. Can't you just stop insulting people for one minute?"
Draco turned and tucked a stray strand of platinum blonde behind his ear, and Harry's mind vaguely registered the gesture as somewhat feminine, but not above the fact that he couldn't stand the little snot, no matter what the time of day.
"In case you didn't notice, Potter," he said smoothly, "I have been buried in textbooks for about an hour, now, and we haven't said a single thing to each other since we got here. I wish it could have continued as such, but YOU were the one who took the opportunity to exploit your stupidity, not I."
Harry, in a fit of frustration, gripped the table and glowered at the blonde. Why did he have to be so damn pretentious? Always acting so aloof, so cold. It was infuriating, the way they clashed—fire and ice, passion and indifference, good and evil, Gryffindor and—
He mentally stopped himself from making any more connections in his mind. The sorting hat wanted him to be put in Slytherin, but he wasn't—he couldn't—was he? He turned shakily back to his work.
But, oh no, Draco would not leave it at that.
"I'm not about to let you coast out of this class with an easy grade," Draco suddenly blurted out, his voice betraying no irritation he may have been feeling, "I fully intend on doing my half of the work, and making you do the other half, even if it is shoddily done and I have to do it again myself. I'd sooner die than let you revel in my skill while doing piss all."
"I'm not an IDIOT, you know!" Harry shot back, putting a hand to his forehead. All this bickering was giving him a headache, and putting unwanted, reflective thoughts in his mind. The last thing he needed now was some sort of inner controversy with this frustrating little bastard. Why would he not let it lie? He was never content to leave fights hanging in midair, but he usually wasn't this insistent at driving a point. He was working towards a climax, like some sort of twisted sexual encounter. Harry shuddered, trying to shove THAT unpleasant thought from his mind.
"You could have fooled me." Draco replied, the same cool, calculated tone as ever before. Harry found, at this hour of the night, his temper was refusing to remain restrained. He was tired of all this senseless fighting—!
"Don't be a smart-ass, Malfoy!" he growled, "You think you're so bloody brilliant, but you're just a self-serving arse who likes to hear himself talk!"
"Right," and Draco turned on him, eyes glinting like frosted steel under the candlelight, "and you're a self-righteous, noble prat, who thinks he can get away with murder, just because everyone's too afraid to punish the 'Golden Boy'!" His last words bit Harry like a serpent's strike, filling his veins with poison. It was a subject he always felt looming over him—why was he allowed so much leeway, when other students would be punished for far less? How come he was treated so differently from everyone, as if he were some sort of glass ornament? His mind snapped back as he realized Draco was still ranting at him.
"Here's a little tidbit of news for you, Potter, I don't tolerate slacking, so you better get over your habit of gliding effortlessly through life."
Harry felt the twinge of truth in his words curl around his heart, threatening to invade. God, no, he couldn't let somebody as flagrantly ignorant as Draco bloody Malfoy barge through his walls. The swelling volcano of his fury was ready to rupture, and where better than at this pointed, vain little shit sitting across from him at a rustic library table? Harry doubted anyone would truly miss him; in fact, he could probably kill him, hide the body in the restricted section, and nobody would know until it started to rot. In a flash, Harry slammed the book shut and was on his feet, palms driving down on the rickety old bench with almost all his weight.
"Just SHUT UP, will you?" he found himself shouting down at him, suddenly glad Madame Pince was gone to a staff meeting at the moment, and could not monitor the display, "You don't know ANYTHING about me, NOT A THING! So stop talking like you've ever UNDERSTOOD me at all!"
To his blatant surprise, Draco did not shout back. At Harry's snarled accusation, he did not even flinch, but sat there, impassive as ever. But Harry could see, in the back of those unfathomable grey depths, a twinge of something akin to… regret? It contorted in that immovable silver vestige briefly, before it was shuttered again, locking him out. When he finally spoke, his cool, clipped tones, in his icy, refined voice struck a nerve in Harry's heart.
"Well, it's not like I didn't try, now is it?"
Just as quickly as it had swelled to a billowing peak, his anger dissipated, leaving behind the trace residue of guilt, and the thick clot of shame in his throat. He cast his eyes down, at the open potions text beneath him. How long had Draco carried that with him? On their first meeting he had been a boisterous young boy, oozing with pride as he had gloated, unsuspectingly, to one of the two most infamous wizards of his time. 'And he never knew who I was until the train, when I turned him away.'
His fingers curled instinctively; trying to clutch the flat tabletop as if it were sand that could sift through them, back to its resting place.
"We're…." He found the words sour on his own tongue, and knew that it was not the ink that throbbed on his tongue, "we're never going to get along, are we? I mean, we're always going to hate each other. Blindly. Through everything."
He couldn't even lift his eyes to survey Draco's expression. He couldn't bear to see the impassiveness there, on his rival's pale, defined face, as he watched him with those inescapable, deep eyes, that glinted like diamonds as they drank in the betrayal that etched itself so clearly over Harry's own features.
"Yes." It was like a spike of cold being driven through his heart, spoken with veiled emotions that betrayed no trace of hurt, no sudden realization. He was merely stating an obvious that Harry himself found impossible to come to grips with.
"Because," he found himself continuing, "When we grow up, when we graduate, we're going to take completely different paths. You're going to be a Death Eater, and I'm going to be an Auror; we're always going to despise each other no matter if we ever wanted to be friends or not."
There was another long pause, twisting the icy arrow deeper, as it sunk its barbs into the part of Harry's heart that believed, somehow, he could save this wretch. He had spent long years telling himself that Draco could be saved; that he didn't have to be another casualty in an imminent war, lying on a battlefield with no-one left to mourn him.
"Yes." If Harry could have found the strength to cry, he would have; but his throat was raw enough as it was, dazzled with that fierce blackness that permeated his mouth and distorted his taste buds. "But only because it is what's expected of us. I don't think we'll ever be given a choice."
Gravely, Harry lifted his head to regard Draco, afraid of the cold indifference he would see—the sight of the blonde's bowed head was a rigid Shock, his normally proud and defiantly set shoulders slouched in defeat. His hands were folded resignedly in front of him on the table, as if he were a prisoner in a courtroom, facing judge and jury. Harry hated the feeling, as if he were supposed to be scrutinizing him.
"But," the blonde stated, with something of a note of hope in his voice, "That's okay, because I think I like you better as my enemy, anyway." Harry felt the swell of relief in his stomach at the return of the old, 'Who Needs You, Anyway?' Draco, and was prepared to make a smart remark back—but it deflated like a popped balloon as he continued.
"What I mean is, I know you're always going to be there to oppose me, and that is one of the few small comforts I have about my future. I am a Slytherin, there are very few I can trust, and I know I don't have any real, true friends. At least, not like you and your little Weasel-Mudblood entourage…" there was a hint of bitterness to his voice, "But I know that, every step of the way, I will always have you there to prove an obstacle for me, and I know that, loath as I am to admit, we are evenly matched. I understand that one day, we're going to end up trying to kill one-another, but I also know that if that's the only certain thing I have, then I wouldn't have it any other way."
He lifted his face to Harry's sight, eyes riveted on his, and Harry was astonished by the maturity set in it. Gone was the snide and sneering face of old, and here was a face set with exhaustion, weary and resilient. The guards in his eyes were stripped away, but the emotions swimming through them were so intensely powerful they were just as well unreadable. Quicksilver, tinged with traces of remorse, fatigue, wistfulness, fondness… so many collective mists that obscured their own discerning with their own force. Even his hair looked more unkempt than it ever had before, usually smoothed back to perfection, but now neglectfully branching out into wisps and framing his stark cheekbones. His face was shades of gray, even in the orange glow of the light. Harry got a strange feeling, deep in the pit of his stomach as he realized he was one of the only people who had ever seen the blonde like this. And when the solemn youth opened his mouth to speak again, he was astonished with the sound of it, ringing like a bell in his ears, with that same matter-of-factness that made it Draco's own:
"You're the only static thing I have in my life; the only thing I have to count on. I value that."
Harry had never been openly told he was "valued" in his life before, other than the fact that he was a powerful wizard, and an important part of defeating Voldemort, once and for all. To have the sudden sensation that, somehow, he made a profound impact on somebody's life was a shock to his system, but for some strange reason, he understood. Friends that came and went were common in this world, a brief reassurance from the uncertainty of the future, but he would be able to look back to his past and recall it. He knew that, no matter what point in life he looked back from, he would remember a small, sour boy in a robe shop, gloating about his wealth and social stature as he tried to impress a mousy young boy with dark green eyes, never seeing for the life of him the grotesque scar that disfigured his forehead and made him a legend. Maybe that was how Draco had originally extended his hand as an inclination to friendship, long before he understood the politics.
His body reacted on its own, reaching forward to cover one of Draco's hands with his own, in a small gesture of consolation. The blonde did not flinch, he did not pull away; indeed, he didn't even acknowledge the touch at all.
"I wish…." He tried to communicate his thoughts through clumsy words, "…I wish it were otherwise, but if that's what you want from me, if that's what you need, I can't do much about it. Other than, well, I guess to promise I will be there to oppose you, whenever you need me to. You don't ever need to worry about finding yourself with nothing—understand I may not necessarily hate you every step of the way, but I'll always be there, at least trying to feign mild disdain. And maybe, someday, if we both make it through that war, when we're on equal ground… we can try this whole 'friendship' thing over again."
Draco looked up at him with those enigmatic, pale eyes, swimming with their abundance of impulses, and regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. When he smiled, it came slowly to his face, first a twinge to his lips, and then curling upward, in a wistful sort of expression. But it reached his eyes, yes, shining with something foreign to their usual icy tones. They were like melted glacier water, almost crystalline blue.
Harry blinked in bewilderment as Draco slowly stood up, leaning over the table to face him. Under his hand, the small fist stirred, turning over to press a palm to his, which he realized with surprise was amazingly warm and soft. It lifted his off the tabletop, palms still pressed together, and his breath caught in his throat as their fingers threaded together—no, not Draco's threading with his, but both together, as if in silent agreement.
"Understand, Potter," Harry was more reading the lips than hearing the words from that small, perfect mouth, in a guttural tone that spoke of trysts in secret corridors, and nights of endless possibility, "that I'm only doing this now because it's probably the only chance we'll ever get."
And Draco's other hand reached up and smoothed his hair away, slender and gentle fingers that ghosted over his scar, and suddenly covering it with his palm, obscuring it from sight. Those surging silver eyes disappeared from view as he let his eyelids slip closed, and it was only a fraction of a second before he felt the warm, moist pressure against his lips.
The most unusual thing about the blonde was his lips—they were not, as Harry had often concluded about the other boy's entire being, cold and dead, but rather warm and soft, and sweet with a tang that mingled with his sour. The kiss was warm and velvet, simple in delivery, but profound in meaning. Under the warmth of the touch, Harry was hit with a blinding, Hand of God epiphany that shook his very core.
Draco was his necessary evil. Gryffindor and Slytherin: the light and the dark; the cause and the effect. In a world that could go to hell and back in a matter of milliseconds, he had a foundation in the shadow he cast, the morbid reminder that he was still there. Living became existing, loving became tolerating, and hatred became the understanding of one's inner evils.
Harry Potter stood, bent over a library table, kissing his inner demons with such an agonizing, intimate slowness, that they ceased to be demons, and faded into him. When he looked back on all his memories of Draco Malfoy, he would see the there what could have been his best friend, possibly a lover, had fate never intervened. He would see that little boy in the robe shop, trying to reach out and touch, but having too much pride to do so, only to find himself years later taking his hand and pressing their mouths together in a sweet, sweeping kiss.
And when it broke apart, there was no soul-searching through unreadable eyes, or groping for the chance to make themselves something more than what they were. The touch faded, leaving its burning mark upon them both as they looked once more upon each other, releasing hands and returning to their seats as if it had never happened.
And neither even thought about the exchange any further, even as it still screamed within them. They went back to their research, both mouths still bitter with the taste of ink.